What are the ethics of creating new life in a simulated universe?

The following is an adapted excerpt from A Big Bang in a Little Room: The Quest to Create New Universes by Zeeya Merali, available in stores now. In the book, Merali explores the possibilities of creating an infant universe in a laboratory. In this excerpt, she meets with noted futurist Anders Sandberg to discuss the ethics of potentially creating new intelligent life in a baby universe, or the possibility of sentience evolving in a computer simulation.